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DVT ups stroke, heart attack risk

Deep venous thrombosis  blood clots in the veins of the thighs and legs, which can travel lethally to the lungs  are well known because of the risk posed by long flights.

But DVTs are far more common in people who are in hospital immobilised, after operations, with cancer treatment or just out of the blue. And it used to be thought that vein clots were very different from arterial clots  say in the heart or neck causing heart attacks or strokes.

Veins, by the way, take blood back to the heart under low pressure; and arteries carry oxygen-loaded blood from the heart to the body under high pressure.

Anyway it turns out from a Dutch study that having a deep vein thrombosis indicates a risk for a future stroke or heart attack.

Analysing 20 years of medical records involving 90,000 people with a DVT who had no prior history of heart disease, researchers found up to a tripling of the risk of stroke or heart attack in the year after the leg clot.

In the following 20 years the risk dropped, but was still raised a little.

The theory is that the person's clotting system is overactive.

So perhaps people with deep venous thrombosis need to have much more active treatment for things like cholesterol and blood pressure, and talk to their GP about low-dose aspirin. But research is needed to confirm that approach.